That was a great launch. After we watched the liftoff online, most of the people in my office went outside to watch the rest of it. Once it gets high enough, you can see most launches from here in Orlando. Then we went back inside to watch the booster landings, really cool. They said there might be sonic booms from the boosters returning, but we didn't hear any.

That was the coolest space launch I've ever seen, and I've watched the Saturn V take off during the Apollo missions. As for the car in space, it's apparently going to be boosted out of our orbit and will be headed towards Mars. I wonder if they're going to try for orbit once they reach Mars? Either way, it'll be interesting to see what sitting in space for years does to a car, if we ever see it again.

Cat (n.) A bipolar creature which would as soon gouge your eyes out as it would cuddle.

No, the upper stage's orbit is only crossing Mars's orbital path. It won't have any direct interaction with Mars, and even if it did, that booster didn't carry nearly enough fuel for an orbital insertion.

Still, though, I think this is final proof that fiction has nothing on reality. If you tried to write this shit, people would call you a hack.

No, the upper stage's orbit is only crossing Mars's orbital path. It won't have any direct interaction with Mars, and even if it did, that booster didn't carry nearly enough fuel for an orbital insertion.

Still, though, I think this is final proof that fiction has nothing on reality. If you tried to write this shit, people would call you a hack.

So I wonder where it'll be heading once it passes by Mars? Just in a general direction to who knows where, or did he have some specific trajectory in mind, like towards Andromeda?

Cat (n.) A bipolar creature which would as soon gouge your eyes out as it would cuddle.

Annnnnd, it's got an orbit that will bring it back towards Earth every 30 years or so. By 2091, it will be as close to us as the Moon is to the Earth during that pass. Unless of course, it crashes into Venus or the Sun first.

Annnnnd, it's got an orbit that will bring it back towards Earth every 30 years or so. By 2091, it will be as close to us as the Moon is to the Earth during that pass. Unless of course, it crashes into Venus or the Sun first.

Elon Musk's personal Tesla might have gotten all the headlines during SpaceX's historic rocket launch last week, but the Falcon Heavy also carried a second, secret payload almost nobody knew about.

Stashed inside the midnight-cherry Roadster was a mysterious, small object designed to last for millions (perhaps billions) of years – even in extreme environments like space, or on the distant surfaces of far-flung planetary bodies.

Called an Arch (pronounced 'Ark'), this tiny storage device is built for long-term data archiving, holding libraries of information encoded on a small disc of quartz crystal, not much larger than a coin.

According to Arch Mission Foundation, the California-based nonprofit behind the technology, these Archs could "preserve and disseminate humanity's knowledge across time and space, for the benefit of future generations".

The Arch looks like a shrunk-down DVD or Blu-ray, but its potential for data storage goes way beyond any optical discs you have in your home.

The technology, developed by physicist Peter Kazansky from the University of Southampton in the UK, can theoretically hold up to 360 terabytes of data, about the same amount as 7,000 Blu-Ray discs.